


Secret Codes and Battleships

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:51:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovering from Promised Day is no easy task. Amestris is broken at its very core, rife with blood-soaked alchemy and at war on almost every border. Mustang and his team try not to lose themselves in the maelstrom of it all. And at the heart of the battleground is where change begins and new life grows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Codes and Battleships

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psyraah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/gifts).



> This began as a secret santa gift for the 2015 RoyEd Gift Exchange. Somewhere in its beginning stages, it took on a life of its own. This fic is dedicated to my recipient, Psyraah, and I hope you enjoy!

_ Their first kiss was in the doorway of Mustang's flat on the outer edge of HQ's military housing district. Roy would have loved to say he’d seen it coming, and perhaps even more wanted to say he had initiated it. But at the time, his feelings for Fullmetal were still conflicted, kept quiet at the back of his mind and in a secret corner of his heart. Instead, Edward himself had done the unexpected, rather typical of his normal behavior, but in no way Roy ever thought possible. At about the point in their tenuous working relationship where he thought it could never be more, there he was holding the doorknob while Ed’s lips were touching the corner of his mouth. Fortunately for him, all of his other guests for the evening had left, and the only one who had seen his jaw gone slack and his eyes wide was the very person who inspired the reaction. Ed offered no explanation, no teasing words, no clue as to what had possessed him to kiss his superior office. Roy was left blinking his dazed world back into focus just in time to see Ed’s retreating back, and before he could decide if he should call Ed back to him, he was already gone down the apartment stairwell and on his merry way. _

~*~

Though the Fuhrer’s office had changed since Grumman’s inauguration, it still made Roy uncomfortable to cross over the threshold, though he told himself it would be his someday. It didn’t change the fact that he’d stared down a monster in this very room, listened to that same monster chronicle in great detail how he would pick apart everything that stood between him and his objective, ruthless and powerful. It didn’t sit well with him, the words, the orders, the choices. And yet there were things that had come out of Bradley’s mouth that felt human, that resonated with a part of him he could relate to. He still hadn’t figured out if that meant Wrath had been more human than he would have liked or if Mustang was more of a monster than he was willing to admit. 

His old mentor and current ruling figure had warmed the room some, reminding Roy of his intimate, cluttered office at Eastern Command. Instead of a cold, empty room with only the walls, windows and furniture, Grumman had hung pictures, erected bookshelves, and had even taken the time to set up his beloved chess set. The two of them hadn’t touched it since Grumman left East City, not for lack of interest, but the leisure of it simply wasn’t an option. One of them was always fixing something these days.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying ‘dead men tell no lies’.”

Mustang leaned back in the chair across Fuhrer Grumman’s desk and crossed his arms, a knot forming in his brow. “I’m familiar.”

“While very heroic and admirable, your stubborn refusal to kill on Promised Day left us with several injured people who are all telling different stories. It’s making quite the mess to sort out about what really happened.”

“Breda has been working almost non-stop to help the communications representatives tell a clearer story about what was going on. It’s going to take time to sort out, and meanwhile, those soldiers can continue to make up their stories behind bars. Surely you’re not suggesting that I should have killed all those people just to save you some trouble weeding out the truth. You already know the truth.”

Grumman chuckled. “I may have been, but you and I are cut from different stock, boy. I find myself wondering every now and then if you’ve really got what it takes to step up when the time comes.” 

Roy found himself straightening in his chair, shoulders tight. “That was a funny joke, Sir.” No humor in his tone or his gaze.

“I wasn’t joking. When you drop a glass of milk, you can’t just mop up the milk and leave the glass lying on the floor as a lesson. You’re going to get cut if you don’t properly clean up the mess thoroughly.”

“With all due respect, Sir, there are so many messes right now, you’d be hard-pressed to determine which were mine and which were the old command’s.”

“Be that as it may, I need to make sure you’ve put such idealistic thoughts to the side in the aftermath. The country is no place for lessons that will come back and bite us.” 

Grumman threaded his fingers together atop the mahogany desk and leaned forward. There was something about his very presence that always towered over Roy, even despite their disparity in size. Once upon a time, it had been a comforting thing; now Roy wondered just how much this man was a mentor and how much he could be an obstacle if their ideas didn’t fall in line. He’d cross that bridge when he reached it, and burn it down if he had to. Roy’s idealistic thoughts, while not entirely applicable in the real world, were what separated him from men like Bradley, and perhaps like Grumman, and he still preferred that.

“Someone should have thought of that before they decided to ally with a megalomaniacal alchemic force,” Roy said with a rueful chuckle that was only a little forced.

It was enough to break the tension between them. Grumman threw his head back in a guffaw quite familiar to Mustang. He clapped his hands down on his desk. “True, boy, very true.” He slid out of his chair. “But enough of this. If I don’t make it to today’s council meeting on time, the new regime will likely have my head. They’re so peculiar, all this young blood. I miss those other old fogeys at the table.”

Roy smirked. “No you don’t.”

They shared another laugh as they walked towards the door. 

“There’s a book on my shelf that belongs to you. You left it behind in Eastern command as you were tripping over yourself to become a big important colonel in Central. Do take it with you.”

“Yes, Sir.” 

Roy saluted the Fuhrer as he departed, then wandered over to the bookshelf, taking a deep breath to collect himself. Nearly every conversation within the walls of Central command was laced with the same tension and couched warning, hints of danger and no small amount of allusion to the state of Amestris after Promised Day. There were still buildings to be repaired, grievances to be mended and a story to get straight that wouldn’t send the public into a panic. Mustang was tired, and he knew it wasn’t just him. 

He found the book in question with little trouble, he recalled the cover instantly with its gold foil rings intertwined on an old canvas surface. The lone warrior’s strategy; how could he have forgotten it all this time? The old familiar words would have come in handy when Bradley conveniently took away all of his support, but he reconciled with himself that he’d managed enough. Not the best, by any means, but enough that he lived, and that mattered most. He tucked the book in the crook of his arm, making a promise to himself to remind himself of those lessons and turned to go. 

If asked, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what stopped him in his tracks. He turned back to the bookshelf the doorway beside it. Intellectually, he knew what was beyond that door, even if his path to its destination had been a different one. He frowned at it even as he stepped towards it. He couldn’t keep from reaching for the knob, surprised to find it unlocked. Careless of Grumman, or perhaps entirely intentional, there was no way to be sure with him. Just a crack in the door brought the smell of alchemy and twisted metal, ozone and blood to his nose. He wrinkled it and for a brief second thought better about continuing. Instinct overrode intellect, and he stepped into the barren stairwell, closing the door behind him and descending down into Father’s lair.

In the weeks after Promised Day, when Roy’s sight had been restored and he had rejoined the military in starting to rebuild, he and his men had gone back down into the tunnels under Central. It had been the newly formed council’s intentions to have the entire thing destroyed. Not many of them knew what its intended purpose had been, but most of them were suspicious enough to think that having such a thing beneath streets of innocent people, spanning the perimeter of the entire country had to be a terrible idea. Mustang thought differently, and he spread the word as he needed to that it would be sealed off, broken down. However, in his mind, Amestris was still in a state of emergency, whether it was acknowledged or not. They needed a way to get around that didn’t involve trains or cars or things that could be stopped with enough force on the surface. The tunnels weren’t the safest, but as he reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around, he had to admit that the Armstrong alchemists had done a fine job of stabilizing it.

Most of Father’s throne room had been left intact. Roy hadn’t seen it with his own eyes until well after their victory against the homunculus. Instead, he had  _ felt _ what it had been like to be here, a visceral memory that went all the way through his muscles and down into his bones. That final transmutation of sacrifices to create the ultimate portal was something he wished he had all of his senses to spread the experience out across. At the very least, if he had seen what happened at that moment, his imagination wouldn’t have to conjure it alone, with only smell, taste and sound. He wouldn’t have to rely on the utter violation of his alchemic being, with nightmares recreated in haunting shadows and voids he thought he’d never climb out of until he woke in a cold sweat. It should have been much more disgusting and abhorrent to his entire self to be down here.

Yet, it called to him.

Roy blinked, finding himself at the base of the grand seat Father commanded from. It was hideous, even partially destroyed. The framework and the way it was carved into the floor and ceiling of the chamber as if it fed off the very life of Amestris. With a shudder, he realized that couldn’t have been very far from the truth. The country had been the creature’s fodder for longer than Roy had been alive, the ancient must of human suffering clogging his throat. He swallowed back the cough, keeping himself as silent as could be while he took first one step up to the throne, then another. HIs breathing was too loud, his boots on the stone too grating, but it didn’t deter him. The book fell to from his arms, momentarily forgotten as it clattered down the staggered stairs to the floor. The noise of its descent rattled in his chest, still he turned, slowly lowering himself down into the seat.

Mustang closed his eyes and tipped his head back, moving his hands to the arms of the chair in a white-knuckle grip. For just a moment, the lingering remnants of such powerful alchemy trickled over him, prickled up his spine, filled his head with a rush. He breathed in, and he was king. More than a soldier, more than Fuhrer, sweet mercy what he could have  _ done _ with all that  _ power _ . Hot on the heels of such hubris came the near-crippling realization that he would ever and always be human. He had been powerless before Father, playing right into its plans like a puppet. He couldn’t fix the world with the hands of a so-called god, he would have to do it with his own. Somehow, that realization wasn’t disheartening, it was empowering. He would make this work, he would fix what went wrong. And the sheer amount of devotion and desire to do it was what kept him human on this throne, it would keep him human when he became Fuhrer. 

That was a promise.


End file.
